The following is probably way more than anyone would want to know about the Carradice Rain Poncho. The short review is this: It’s Good.
Sunday March 3, 1996
I wake up and see my lovely wife smiling at me.
“It’s raining,” she says.
Rain! How perfect. Finally I can test out the Carradice rain cape I’d gotten last week. Naturally, as soon as I got the cape, we had a week of unusual sunshine here in the Seattle area. But yesterday, I’d seen a bunch of folks lined up at the car wash, so I figured the rains would return. I was right.
“I’m going biking,” I announce.
“I figured as much,” Christine says “you want to take the boys with you?”
“Uh, no. But I’ll make cinnamon rolls for breakfast.”
So at around 9:30, fortified by Poppin’ Fresh, Christine and the boys head off for church while I head out of town. Christine gave me one of her concerned wife looks when she saw me all decked out in the Carradice.
“It’s not as visible as your duck jacket,” she declared.
She was right. My “duck jacket” is something I’d gotten from a Performance mail-order catalog a few years previously. It is a bright retina-searing yellow thing made of a miracle fabric called Entrant(TM) that is supposed to be both waterproof and breathable. The catalog had called it a “techno-geek’s dream”. And it works OK…if you didn’t actually move about or do anything that would involve burning more than about 17 calories. Then it becomes a little nylon pressure cooker. It has zippers under the armpits to help vent some steam but basically you have your choice of getting wet from rain or drenched in sweat.
The Carradice, on the other hand, is a subtle hunter green cape made by old world craftspeople who still use things like cotton and wax to make a waterproof garment. It does have a swatch of Scotchlite(TM) across the back and the edges of the cape are trimmed with nylon, but the bulk of the cape is good old fashioned waxed cotton duck.
In terms of visiblity, the duck jacket wins hands down. I checked the two garments for packability and again the duck jacket wins — it packs into a really small package and it weighs something like eight ounces. The Carradice was also quite light although it is probably a bit over a pound in weight. The cape has its own cotton stuffsack that is about the size of a small loaf of bread.
The cape has a hood lined with Dress Campbell plaid cotton and has a neck zipper and a big solid snap. It also has a cotton waist strap and a pair of cotton loops for your hands. It’s not until I get on the bike that I really appreciate how much thought went into the placement of these little strips of cotton.
So now I’m riding up the Issaquah-Fall City Road. This hill leads out of the valley I live in and up into mixture of suburbia and farmland. The temperature is about 48 degrees and it’s raining pretty steadily now. If I were wearing the duck jacket, I’d be poached like a salmon by now. As it is, with the cape I am still warm, but not molten. I’m wearing a thin long sleave thermal t-shirt and my army surplus five button wool sweater under the cape. Shorts, tights and uncoated nylon pants complete my outfit. I’ve got small baggies over my socks in my shoes and I’ve got fleece and nylon gloves. I’m not using the cape’s hood, prefering instead to use a baseball cap under my helmet to keep my head dry.
Riding with the cape makes me feel positively medieval, like Chaucer should be writing “the caped cyclist’s tale” about me. Still, for all it’s traditional looks, I’m realizing that this garment really is doing a good job of keeping me dry.
The waist strap keeps the back from flapping while the hand loops let the cape drape forward to the brake levers. The net effect is that the garment keeps me and most of the bike dry. Of course, even with fenders, some road spray gets kicked up, but the nylon pants deflect most of that.
The cape is completely waterproof. I watch the water bead up and pool in the basin formed between my hands. I can flick my wrists and roll it off. Because the cape is open at the bottom, a good airflow keeps sweat from building up. I am dry as toast.
I’d been worried about aerodynamics — how much the cape would flap and whether or not it would be a drag in the wind. There wasn’t much wind today to let me try it out, but a quick 40 mile per hour descent at Duthie Hill Road gives me the data I need. This thing doesn’t flap much. At first I think,”wow, those Carradice folks must have done some good wind tunnel testing”, but then I realize that the truth is probably simpler — they rode with the capes, they listened to their customers, they’ve been making these things since the thirties. This is how you make a good product.
Here are a couple of unexpected side effects of the cape:
First, it really keeps the saddle of the bike dry. I ride a real leather saddle and this is a definite plus. A close-fitting rain jacket and pants would actually wind up channeling water onto the front of my saddle, but the Carradice covers it like a tent.
Second, the cape blocks my view of the entire bike except for the front wheel. I use downtube shifters and I’ve always been a gear looker. That is, I’d always glance at my gears to see what cog I’m in. With the cape I can’t do that. I shift by feel. I tend to forget the bike more, which is good I guess. I’m thinking more of the road and the ride, less of the bike. But it feels odd at first.
I’m 5’6″ and ride a 52 cm frame. I find I can keep my hands in the cape loops and still do all the things I’d ususally do on the bike: things like shift, grab the water bottle, tighten my toe straps, etc. If I was a lot taller and rode a bigger frame, I might have some trouble reaching, but as it is, things are fine.
Another possibility with the loops would be to drape them around the brake hoods. This would probably work well and would really contribute to the riding around in a little tent feeling. I prefer keeping the cape attached to my hands. I’m on my road bike, so I try all the various hand positions: on the hoods, on the drops, flat across the tops. The cape doesn’t get in the way. I stretch my hands out to simulate riding with wide mountain bars. Yep, the cape would work with those, too.
I ride the Redmond-Fall City Road into Fall City. I go past 202 Cycle, a combination bicycle/espresso shop. It’s not open yet, but I see on their sign that they’ll be open at 11:00. I figure I’ll stop on the way back. I ride through Fall City and take route 203 up toward Carnation. There are a couple of miles on this stretch where you are really reminded that this is cow country. It really smells quite rural. Very, very rural. I make it through this section and into Carnation.
I ride around a little in Carnation. I get chased by a dog. The owner assures me he won’t bite, but I don’t stick around to test this hypothesis. I head back down 203 to Fall City. I stop for coffee at the bike shop. I am hoping they will have a nice XO-1that has been laying idle for a few years, but no such luck. I get a cup of coffee instead. The place lacks that great “hangout” feel I look for in a shop, so I get my coffee to go. Drinking coffee while riding in the rain is one of life’s true pleasures.
Rather than go up Duthie Hill Road, I stick on the Redmond-Fall City Road and take it into Redmond. I finish my coffee and realize the cape has no pockets. My duck jacket has the standard bikie pockets in the back that are good for stashing things like empty coffee cups. I bike for a few miles looking for a garbage can. I see dozens of coffee cups in the ditch, but resist the urge to add mine to the pile. It’s quite amazing how few garbage cans you see in the country, but at last I find one.
It stops raining just as I’m coming in to Redmond and I have a flat. I caught a chunk of glass in the rear tire. I’m glad it’s not raining now. I stop, replace the tube and continue on. I realize that if it had been raining, I probably could have used the cape to keep things dry as I changed the tube. I begin to think that maybe I’m a victim of the “give a man a hammer and everything looks like a nail” syndrome. OK, the cape is good, but it’s not a magical talisman, capable of solving all biking problems.
I take the East Lake Sammamish Parkway down into Issaquah. There is very light rain off and on. Around 1:30 I get home. Four hours of riding with rain for at least three of those hours. I am dry, I am comfortable (except for my feet which are wet). The cape is a good thing.
Monday March 4, 1996
Kent Peterson
“When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race.” — H.G. Wells
